Joe Medved

Google Glass has huge potential but must overcome serious style issues for broad adoption. #SeeSegway

I posted the above tweet last week and got mixed reactions. Google Glass technology could dramatically impact many professions and see related use quickly. However, for broad consumer adoption, the technology needs to be embedded to the point it’s essentially hidden. Until then, vanity will severely constrain growth.

There is an alternative that could deliver much of the same data at a glance. The iWatch concept rumored from Apple could see rapid consumer adoption given its more socially acceptable, glanceable UI. Many reporters over the past week testing Google Glass have questioned the way it makes users look, quickly coining the phrase glasshole for someone willing to walk around wearing the device.They look awkward and create a strange conversation dynamic with a screen and forward facing camera in between you and whoever you’re speaking with.

Alternatively, looking down at your watch is a human behavior that’s been in place for a few hundred years. I am one of those geeks walking the streets of Manhattan staring down at my phone, and I’d feel much more comfortable glancing at my wrist. Without pulling your phone out of your pocket, an iWatch could deliver email headlines, texts, IMs, social media updates and photos, news headlines, weather alerts, and caller ID. Beyond glanceable consumption, with a simple touch interface I could swipe through messages and delete them, look through photos and like them, save stories to read later, or send calls to voicemail. I could give similar commands to Google Glass through my voice, if I didn't mind the whole glasshole thing. We shouldn’t care what strangers think of us, but if we’re honest I think most of us do.

While I agree with the notion that many great consumer devices were once considered toys, I can’t forget gadgets like the Segway that geeks thought would change the world. It turns out most people feel goofy riding around with a helmet on a Segway, and as my friend Rob Go pointed out, you didn’t have to wear a Segway on your face.

An iWatch is a toy that geeks have dreamed of since they read Dick Tracy comics, and it’s one that overcomes the vanity issues facing products like Google Glass and Segway. I think Google Glass has an incredible future as its form is improved, but I’d bet on an iWatch in the near term if Apple or some other big platform player brings one to market.